Box of Face Powder and Hair Ties; Specialities of Shimomura in Ryogaecho

This surimono by Totoya Hokkei depicts a still-life of a box of face powder and a set of paper hair ties, identified by inscription as specialities of the Shimomura shop in Ryogaecho, a fashionable cosmetic dealer in central Edo. The image presents the goods with the careful arrangement of a shop sign: the powder box stands centered with its lid slightly displaced to reveal the contents, while the looped paper ties (motoyui) are gathered alongside in a neat bundle. By naming the shop in the title, the print functions partly as an advertisement and partly as an emblem of the urban consumer culture in which kyoka poets moved. Hokkei, a leading surimono designer of the Hokusai school, treats the subject with the same precise still-life vocabulary he applied to lobsters, vases, and helmets, locating beauty in the careful presentation of mundane objects. The white of the powder, the soft sheen of the lacquered box, and the linear bundle of motoyui play off one another across the empty page. The sheet would have been commissioned by a poetry circle, the accompanying kyoka verses probably teasing the world of fashion and cosmetics or playing on puns involving makeup, change, and concealment. As a surimono it was issued in a small edition on hosho paper with metallic pigments and blind embossing, contributing to the luxurious feel of the represented goods. The print is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it documents the way the Hokusai school's surimono engaged directly with the commercial and consumer culture of nineteenth-century Edo while elevating it to the level of refined still-life.